If Ive got it right, the ball can hit an arm, if its accidental and the arm is in a natural postion....but, even if those two are met, if it leads to a goal it makes no difference, it just cant hit the arm.
That leaves at least two subjective calls, was it accidental, and at what point has the game moved on enough that it didnt lead to the goal.
Pre VAR, the ref might miss a handball, or in that moment decide it wasnt siginificant enough, but now every time an arm is hit in the box, its picked up and those two subjective calls have to be made. Short of ditching VAR (or only using it to pick real howling mistakes) we are stuck with this.
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So they look at handball in immediate lead up to Brighton goal.
The ball comes to Rutter who aims to control it with his thigh but mis-controls and it goes upwards and catches his arm and changes the travel of the ball 90 degrees or more so he is able to shoot at goal.
It gets saved and then from a second or two more of play he gets another chance at shooting and scores.
It’s called accidental handball and it’s allowed .
I’m totally lost, how can it be accidental if the ball catch his arm changed the direction of the ball so much ( he wouldn’t have been able to have his original shot if it had not hit his arm ). As the ball would have continued from his thigh away from him and towards a West Ham defender.
Either way Brighton stay below us but honestly struggling to understand any of the decision
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on December 7, 2025, 4:37 pm, in reply to "